How to recognize a fruit

OK, first off, if it's made of plastic, it's not a fruit.
What you have there is a plastic imitation of a fruit,
not a fruit at all. No fruits are made of plastic!

OK, assuming it's not plastic, how can you tell when something is
a fruit?
Well, first of all, if it's one of the obvious ones (you know, like
an apple, or a banana), well, there you go. Done.

But let's assume the thing you're looking at is not obviously
a fruit.
It would be nice to say that if it looks like other fruits, it is
probably a fruit.
But there are too many kinds of fruit to really say that anything
"looks like" other fruit.
I mean, think about the watermelon, vs. the pomegranate, vs.
the grape.
We're talking about a big range of looks here, people.

So the point is, fruits are often colorful. I mean, who ever
heard of a gray fruit?
Oh, I forgot. Fruits are, of course, food. So if, say,
you were to bite into the item, and it was clearly not meant to
be eaten (say, a beer bottle, or an eraser), then it's not
a fruit.

In fact, fruit isn't just food, but it's usually sweet.
(Not always, though. A sour apple is obviously not sweet.)
So, okay, we've got colorful, sweetfood.
Oh yeah, it has to be grown. Like, straight off the plant.
So Jello isn't a fruit, even though it's colorful and sweet
(of course, some might argue it isn't food :-).
In fact, it can't just come anywhere off the plant, it has
to be hanging off the branches, or something.
My point is, it can't come from under the ground. Otherwise,
you'd have to call a carrot a fruit.

(I have to digress for a sec.
You know, some people say that carrots are sweet. They talk
about carrot juice as being this really sweet drink.
I just don't get that. I mean, I like carrots and all,
but I just wouldn't call them "sweet". Weird.)

So anyway, the problem with this business about the fruit
growing off a branch is that you can't look at one and tell
(unless it's hanging off the branch right then and there,
because you're in an orchard or something. But what are the
odds of that?)

A few other possibilities: fruits are squishy. Well, maybe.
An apple may or may not be squishy (I usually throw them out
if they are the slightest bit squishy, but that's probably
wasteful). So no go there. How about: fruits turn brown when they
get old. Well, that's certainly true, but you don't want to wait
until the fruit is old before you identify it (and besides,
vegetables get brown too).
Maybe: Fruits have fruit flies swarming around them. All I can say
to that is: yecch!. How about: Fruits have fruit bats
swarming around them. Well now you're just being silly.

What it really comes down to is: you just can't tell by itself.
So here's the key: you gotta use context.
For instance, if it's in the fruit section of the store,
it's a fruit.
If it's being served at dessert, it's more likely a fruit than
a vegetable.
If it's packed in a lunch with a sandwich and dessert, it's
a fruit (at least, it would be in my family).

People (especially kids) like getting into shouting matches about whether a tomato, say, is a fruit or a vegetable. Of course, the problem is that people are using different definitions. From a scientific standpoint, a fruit is the seed-bearing pod of a plant, and a vegetable is essentially anything plant-related. So from that standpoint, a tomato is certainly a fruit, and is vegetable as well (as are all fruits). From a culinary standpoint, though, we have this distinction among some edible plants, into fruits and vegetables (there are plant-derived foods not considered either, of course, such as cereals). And of course, these are culturally determined (I've heard in some cutures rice, for example, is considered a vegetable and in some a cereal). Not all fruits are biologically fruits, and some vegetables are. So cucumbers and tomatoes are vegetables, even though biologically they're fruits, while strawberries (technically bits of stems, not fruits) are fruits, and I'd be half-inclined to consider rhubarb a fruit too, even though it's just a stem.

Tomatoes and cucumbers aren't sweet enough to be fruits. Nor are peppers, even carrots. But strawberries are, and citrus fruits are sour (as is rhubarb, hence the classification above). There are some grey areas: how sweet do you have to be? Yams (sweet potatoes) are vegetables to most people; maybe they're not sweet enough. It was actually this question which led me to think to node this today: I was eating butternut squashsoup... butternut squash is also pretty sweet. Is it a fruit? Um, maybe.

Well, something to consider. I don't know if that guideline will really hold up, but at least realize that this whole "tomatoes are fruits!" "No, they're vegetables!" argument is ridiculous as it's usually made.

According to my 7th grade health teacher, whom I engaged in a hearty argument over this very subject with, the tomato is by science a fruit, and by law a vegetable. That's already been said. Now, I suppose y'all wonder why.

The legal case here is Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893) (yay citations) and went all the way to the Supreme Court. The story behind it is this: in 1883, the Tarriff Act imposed a 10% duty on all imported vegetables, but none on fruit. Seeing a good chance to increase collections, the New York Customs Collector declared the tomato to be a vegetable, and incensed importers sued.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where the historical proclamation was made by Justice Gray that:

“although botanists consider the tomato a fruit, tomatoes are eaten as a principal part of a meal, like squash or peas, (and all grow on vines), so it is the court’s decision that the tomato is a vegetable.”

This decision legally defined a tomato as a vegetable in the United States and imposed the same tarriffs as for vegetables on them, casting aside hundreds of years of scientific knowledge like so many votes for Al Gore.